Control
by starfish.dancer
Summary: She’d come today to break that final hold he had over her, and so she had to do this alone." A dark, post-Hogwarts fiction in which Hermione struggles to wrest the last piece of her shattered freedom from the one who had broken her.


Author Note: This was my first attempt at a fanfiction, posted a while ago. I choose to take it down (the reasons are long, the story convoluted, and in all probability boring) but I am quite fond of this one, so, having finally found the disk I saved it on, I am posting it again, with a few minor changes. Criticism is also welcome as long as it is the constructive kind. Reviews are guaranteed to make my day, and could give me the kick I need to finish the companions to this piece I have planned...And yes, that was a resort to bribery.

Disclaimer: If I was J.K. Rowling, I'd own them. In fact, I would own quite a few more things than I do now if I were Ms. Rowling. As I am not Ms. Rowling, I am only borrowing. 

Control  
  
It had been two years, three months, sixteen days and eighteen hours since she'd last laid eyes on him.  
  
Not that she was counting.  
  
The room they brought her to see him in was not cold. They prided themselves on making visitors, at least, comfortable. Yet she shivered involuntarily.  
  
She was not surprised to find the room heavily guarded and heavily warded. It wasn't astonishing in the least when one considered the calibre of prisoner these walls had to contain. She had to remind herself that she was safe here; that he could not touch her and therefore could not shatter the carefully built confidence she'd pulled around her like a cloak, hoarded especially for this confrontation. She was free now, she told herself. She'd come here to finish this, and she would and could do so.  
  
Her two companions squeezed her shoulders gently in an effort to reassure her. Two years ago, she would have flinched at their touch, as if allowing it were a betrayal. That she didn't recoil but smiled instead, albeit weakly, encouraged them, though their eyes held worry as they left the room, turning back to verify that she still stood by her choice to do this alone, to do this herself.  
  
They'd argued against it, saying it was unnecessary. Let us take care of this for you, they'd pleaded. You don't owe him anything, they'd reasoned. But somehow, she couldn't take the easy route and hand them control; somehow, though she knew she shouldn't, she still felt loyalty enough to let him hear the words from her first. She'd come today to break that final hold he had over her, and so she had to do this alone. They left her quietly, uncertain but understanding.  
  
The years hadn't touched him, nor had this place. Neither had the years touched her, despite all that she'd been through, despite all that had been done to her at his hands. It was as though the two of them had been frozen in time, like the unmoving muggle portraits that had hung over her parents' mantle until he'd destroyed that too.  
  
He was lounging in his chair with the lazy grace he'd always possessed, as though he were at home in his armchair and not sitting on a metal chair in a forbidding, grey cell. Even here, an aura of power surrounded him like a shadowed halo, and she sucked in a breath instinctively. As ever, he was the aristocrat, chiselled features schooled in a mask of indifference.  
  
At her jerking nod, the guards moved to observe from the doorway, giving her some semblance of privacy. As she sat down at the metal table across from him, their wands were poised in the air, never leaving his person, ever vigilant, ever ready, waiting for him to make the slightest move in her direction. Even after all this time they didn't understand him. She knew him well enough to feel his triumph at this, though his bored expression never changed. Even here, wandless and surrounded by guards, they recognized that he was powerful. That he was dangerous. They felt it as she did, though they would never know the extent of it that she did.  
  
"Hello, Hermione," he drawled, the only other acknowledgement of her presence one sardonically lifted eyebrow. He'd long since dispensed with addressing her by her last name. As she'd stopped addressing him by his.  
  
"Hello, Draco."  
  
Once, in a time that seemed unreachably far away, she'd spoken in tones referred to as bossy and superior by those who'd disliked her, even those who'd loved her had called it matter of fact. Not anymore. Now her voice was dulcet, subservient.  
  
Ginny Weasley had cried the first time she'd heard it. Broken, she'd called it, nearly breaking down herself. She said that it was like he'd doused the flames of their friend's personality, so that not even smouldering ash remained. They'd all cried, every one of her Gryffindor classmates turned comrades-in-arms. Cried for her loss and for the frightened bird she'd become. Even Snape hadn't been unaffected when he'd seen the cowering shell his former student had become. Albus Dumbledore had not cried. He hadn't been there. He'd died in that final battle that had ended nothing but her freedom. Died like so many others had died. Like some said she had died, even as she stood before them, breathing still.  
  
"So they finally let you come visit me," he drawled again. He meant Harry and Ron of course. And he was partially right. They'd kept her away from him at first, though she'd begged and pleaded and cried at them to let her go to him. They'd kept her by force from seeing him, though she felt she would die. They'd rebuilt her, piece by piece, until she was able to recognize that she didn't truly need to be with him, that she didn't even truly want to be with him. Until she was able to find the strength to break his hold over her, to know own mind and be free again. And so these last sixth months, it had been she who'd chosen not to visit him. Until now.  
  
"This-," she faltered for a moment, and cursed herself mentally for showing weakness before she righted herself and pushed on. "This isn't a visit." Her hands, clasped in her lap under the lip of the table, were icy. Her knuckles had gone white, but she barely noticed.  
  
"Then what, pray tell, is it, Hermione?" He rolled her name over his tongue as though it were some particularly sweet candy. It never failed to send shudders down her spine. Even now, she shook in fear and anticipation.  
  
"I've come to tell you- I've come to inform you that I'm getting a divorce," she said quietly, staring fixedly at her hands as though they fascinated her. She took a breath. It was out there now. She felt a small surge of relief, and something else she couldn't name, only feel the burn in her throat. She'd done it.  
  
The room was eerily silent for a moment as she felt him process her words. Then he broke the silence with a sound low in his throat, a chuckle perhaps, or a note of disapproval. She could feel his eyes on her, raking over her body, a burning glare that always left her feeling vulnerable. Then he spoke without the anger she'd anticipated, his voice instead both gentle and mocking.  
  
"Hermione." Her name was on his tongue again, an endearment and a possession at once. When she made no response, he spoke again. "Hermione, look at me."  
  
She felt her blood like ice in her veins now. She'd been wrong, horribly wrong. He hadn't needed to touch her at all. She felt the caress in his voice, all silk and velvet, like the way those pale, slender fingers used to slide down her cheek to wrap around her throat. She raised cinnamon coloured eyes slowly from her bloodless fists to lock on pools of stormy grey. She felt again, the way she hadn't in so many months, like she was fighting against the undertow. Fighting, and losing.  
  
"We won't be getting a divorce, pet," he chided her. His words were honeyed, then shifted suddenly to the steel she was so familiar with. "You know I can't allow that."  
  
Her panic made her stronger, and she was able tear forcibly tear her eyes from his stony gaze. Her heart raced. Searching frantically, she found a chip in the stone of the walls. She stared at it as though it contained her salvation and all the secrets of the universe. Only then could she continue.  
  
"The Ministry has made concessions for women who married during ... for women who, under duress married ... for women like me," she finished lamely, not able to bring herself to say the truth out loud, though she thought she'd faced it months ago. "The divorce will be granted without contest because of the circumstances...my circumstances."  
  
She hurried on, still refusing to meet his gaze. "Harry has used his influence to get the Ministry to speed the process up for me. They've agreed to process and grant the divorce as soon as I file. I just wanted ... I just thought I should tell you in person, that this is what I am doing. I didn't want you to be surprised. I have an appointment tomorrow and it should be finished in a little over a week."  
  
By now her voice had died to little more than a whisper. He still said nothing, merely looked at her intently while waiting for her to meet his eyes again. When she finally did, his grey orbs were hard metal, and she had to bolster all her will power to tell herself not to be afraid again.  
  
"You won't divorce me, Hermione."  
  
It was a command, and much more. She recognized that. But she'd come so far she couldn't lay down in surrender.  
  
"I ...I will!" she shouted, finding, somewhere, a little of her old strength, of her old voice, of the bravery that had convinced the Sorting Hat she was a Gryffindor a lifetime ago.  
  
"It doesn't matter, and you and I know it. The so-called Ministry can declare our marriage invalid or null, it changes nothing. You and I both know the truth, the one they cannot face. We've seen it, Hermione. I've taught you what it means, and you haven't forgotten. This war isn't over yet, it never was. He will win, Hermione. It's inevitable. Albus Dumbledore hadn't the power to stop him, and neither will Harry Potter. And when He wins, love, I will come for you. I will find you, love, no matter where you try to hide. You'll be waiting for me until that day. You belong to me, and I never give up my possessions."  
  
He was using that voice again, the one people generally reserved for soothing wounded animals. He used to use that crooning voice when she cowered in corners, crying and afraid, yet still crawling back into his expectant arms when he coaxed her.  
  
She was never sure which Draco she hated more. When he was rough, he wouldn't stop until he had made her cry, taking pleasure in her weakness and his control over her. He liked her broken, when she sobbed, when she begged, when she whimpered, because then he knew he'd won. She despised the way he made her feel so powerless and defeated. The way she was defeated. And when she cried, it was always in his arms, and she loathed this too.  
  
She also hated the other Draco, the gentle one who knew he'd won. She hated when fingers that bruised instead stroked erotic patterns on her skin. She hated the way he made her breathe his name as a supplication, a benediction. She hated the way she felt, the way she forgot, when his arms encircled her and his lips trailed soft kisses on her bare shoulders. She hated it because this made her a traitor.  
  
"I won't wait for you," she whispered, even as she tried to convince herself that it wasn't already coming true. "I won't!"  
  
She was standing now, having pushed herself away from the table, away from him. Her arms were folded over her stomach as though they could shield her. She began to back away. She was retreating, she realized. Losing ground she never had, she thought wildly. Losing.  
  
He was smirking at her now, the smile that wasn't one really ever present on his face. He knew what every step meant. "You will wait, in one form or another," he dismissed her rebuttal. "And it will go much easier for you if you wait for me at the Manor, Hermione."  
  
There it was, the threat against her throat like a sharp silver dagger.  
  
" I won't," she whispered hoarsely as she backed out the door, her eyes frozen on his, trying to close them against his omniscient stare, trying for once to win this battle. It was futile, and he held her gaze, held her, until the guard swung the door shut behind her. They both knew she was lying.  
  
As the door locked behind her fleeing form, her two companions rose from where they'd sat in front of the viewing mirror. They immediately strode to her side, scanning her for any signs of trauma.  
  
"So," began Ron eagerly, searching her face which had faded to a blank numbness that mirrored her husband's earlier mask. "How's it feel to know in a week's time you'll be a free woman, fighting off bachelors from all directions?" Ron's heart was as ever on his sleeve, hope ever in his eyes, and a promise ready to fall from his lips at the slightest look of encouragement. He'd lost her all those years ago and had always despaired at the lack. When they'd found her two years ago, everything he thought had died had come to life again. Now, he could finally stop waiting.  
  
"From what we watched through the glass, he seemed to take it quite well," added Harry. The years had not yet made him a cynic. It was as though willing it could make it true.  
  
Her next words shattered two hopes and one heart. She heard herself speak, and her voice sounded detached even to her own ears, as though someone else was talking from far away.  
  
"There isn't going to be a divorce."  
  
At her stricken face, eerily pained with a sad smile, the protests on their lips died. Ginny was not there to cry this time, so Harry and Ron cried for her.  
  
"I'm going home, to wait. My husband - he's coming back."  
  
END  
  
Further Author Note: I hope you enjoyed. As I insinuated in the first author note, I do have a companion on the go, though I consider this one a stand-alone piece. I do plan to write not one but two companions, a prequel of sorts and a sequel of sorts, but it won't be until the muse and I agree on what compliments and adds to this one.


End file.
